LAKEWOOD, Ohio — In the fall of 2007 in this suburb of about 50,000 people neighboring Cleveland
to the west, much was riding on the Lakewood mayoral race.

“We could be teetering on the brink of collapse,” said Kevin Butler, now Lakewood’s law director
and former city council member, on what would’ve happened had the wrong guy won.

“The city of Lakewood would have gone into fiscal emergency or would’ve had significant tax
increases,” said Lakewood Finance Director Jennifer Pae, who held the same job in the fall of
2007.

Disaster was averted, the two Lakewood officials said, because Ed FitzGerald defeated incumbent
Mayor Tom George, for whom Pae worked. And, unlike George, FitzGerald cut the number of city
workers and trimmed their benefits rather than raise taxes as a remedy for ailing finances.

In the fall of 2014, FitzGerald likely will be the Democratic nominee for governor in Ohio, and
Republicans are already trying to define him as a tax-and-spend liberal. But FitzGerald’s record of
running governments isn’t quite so simple to categorize. In some cases, his record is comparable to
the man he will try to beat next year, Republican Gov. John Kasich.

For the past three years, FitzGerald has served as the first elected executive of Cuyahoga
County’s new charter government, and before that was Lakewood’s mayor for three years. In that span
he trimmed county and city payrolls by a total of about 650 workers.

He cut spending in Lakewood by about $3 million out of a $37.8 million general fund. In
patronage-rich Cuyahoga County, FitzGerald not only has shrunk the workforce, but he says, “I have
negotiated the biggest concessions with our labor unions in the history of the county.”

“Fiscally I think it’s been very conservative and responsible,” FitzGerald said of his
management style.

But Chris Schrimpf, spokesman for the Kasich-controlled Ohio Republican Party, said, “Ed
FitzGerald is a big-government liberal who thinks he knows how to spend the taxpayer’s money better
than the taxpayer does.”

At the time, Schrimpf was pushing back on FitzGerald, who was bashing Kasich for capping
eligibility for the seniors’ homestead property-tax exemption. That capping of eligibility at
$30,000 of income for people who turn 65 on Jan. 1 was partially how Kasich and GOP lawmakers paid
for a net $2.7 billion tax cut for Ohioans (over three years). Republicans say FitzGerald is
opposed to the tax cut.

But Schrimpf also points out that Cuyahoga County has the highest sales tax in the state and
Lakewood’s income tax was among the highest in Cuyahoga County when FitzGerald left.

“Just because you didn't increase (taxes) doesn't mean you aren't responsible for them; you
spent the money it brought in,” Schrimpf told
The Dispatch. “Governor Kasich thought taxes were too high in Ohio, so he lowered
them."

The roughly $2.5 billion county budget FitzGerald recently proposed for 2014-15 contains more
spending than revenue, with the deficits offset by the county’s massive reserves. But the county
also is on pace to save $22.5 million in 2013. In the same October report in which Standard &
Poor’s downgraded the county’s credit because of a “weak economy” tied to population loss, the
ratings agency gave the county high marks for “very strong budget flexibility” and strong
policies.

Some of the fire FitzGerald draws is friendly, not unlike Kasich, who was the subject of a
formal protest by 39 Republican House members over Medicaid expansion last month.

Asked by
The Dispatch if she felt FitzGerald was doing a good job as county executive, Democratic
Cuyahoga County Council President C. Ellen Connally said “uh ... yeah.”

Pressed about her lack of enthusiasm, Connally finally said “his communication with council
could have been better.”

As executive, FitzGerald has pursued some big-ticket items that have drawn varying degrees of
praise and criticism.

They include building a new convention center and adjacent hub for medical companies, projects
that began before he got there but finished early and under budget by about $38 million. He also
announced with Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson construction for a new hotel for the convention
center.

FitzGerald has a $100 million fund for economic development and he just won passage of a $2 m
illion program to put $100 into a college savings account for every child entering kindergarten in
the county.

Perhaps more than anything else, FitzGerald’s main job has been to guide the county’s transition
to the new executive-council form of county government, brought on by voters who chose to dump the
traditional commissioners-row offices format in 2009 because of a widespread corruption
scandal.

Ironically, FitzGerald opposed the ballot issue creating the government, then ran (and won) to
become the first elected executive in 2010.

The county is down about 450 employees, employees pay more for their health benefits, and
bargaining units accepted no wage increases.

“Look, when we came into office there were a lot of patronage jobs here, so whoever was serving
as executive … would’ve come up with a lot of those reductions in head count,” said David
Greenspan, a Republican on the county council and a FitzGerald critic. “He has put himself in a
position where his term will be viewed as incomplete because of his (gubernatorial intentions). He
brought forward an agenda for the county with a lot of initiatives on it, but there just aren’t
enough resources in my opinion to implement his initiatives in the time allotted.”

Back in 2007, the city of Lakewood was spending more than it took in for the fourth time in five
years. It would end the year with a $4.5 million budget shortfall and about two days’ cash in
reserve. At the same time, there was a perception that more police were needed on Lakewood’s
streets.

Mayor George’s answer was to seek an increase in the city’s 1.5 percent income tax rather than
cut the workforce. FitzGerald opposed raising taxes, and upon taking office he shrunk the city’s
payroll by 194 full- and part-time positions over two years, cut benefits packages and added a few
more police.

“We’re doing just fine now, and I think a lot of that is because we right-sized the government
back in 2008, I really do,” Butler said. “I attribute that to Ed’s leadership, and I am not just
saying that because he encouraged me to be a politician.”

Pae added: “Ed used the Lakewood playbook when he went from Lakewood to Cuyahoga County.”